Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
open access
Identical sensory input may be perceived differently, based on expectations and goals. For example, object recognition is facilitated for expected or task-relevant objects. At the same time,...Show moreIdentical sensory input may be perceived differently, based on expectations and goals. For example, object recognition is facilitated for expected or task-relevant objects. At the same time, unexpected objects are found to elicit a stronger neural response. These effects can be explained by predictive coding accounts of visual processing, presenting perception as a process of minimizing the difference between predicted and observed sensory input. However, as expectation and task-relevance are often conflated, it is insufficiently clear how these factors influence sensory processing in conscious perception. The current study aimed to investigate the relative influence of expectation and task-relevance on behavioral and neural measures of perception. During two EEG sessions, participants performed a task in which they discriminated between masked face and house images while we independently manipulated expectation and task-relevance. We find that images were more often correctly recognized when they were expected or task-relevant. In addition, we used multivariate pattern analysis to show that a classifier trained on sensory representations of face and house stimuli is better able to distinguish between expected or task-relevant face and house images than between unexpected or task-irrelevant images. These results suggest that expectation and task-relevance have independent effects on sensory processing. Finally, our results show that cue-based manipulations may activate sensory templates even before stimulus onset. We therefore recommend that future studies manipulate expectation and task-relevance without the use of explicit cues.Show less
This thesis explores the insights that the contemporary practice of neuro art can add to knowledge that is held over the construction of consciousness. This is done through considerations of the...Show moreThis thesis explores the insights that the contemporary practice of neuro art can add to knowledge that is held over the construction of consciousness. This is done through considerations of the work of Annie Cattrell and Helen Chadwick. In order to identify the added value of art, first an analysis is made of the current neuroscientific stance and its influence in society. Secondly, the thesis minutely demarcates the limits of the neuroscientific method. Here it is laid bare why its objective nature is inherently inadequate for a full understanding of consciousness, that is subjective per definition. The third chapter offers a concise introduction to neuro art. In the subsequent two chapters, the confrontation with the two artworks takes place. Through a reflection on how the artists employ their artistic means to conduct their research on the subject, insights on the construction of consciousness are deduced. The thesis is ended with a reflection on the position of art regarding science is present-day society. Art that engages itself with science enriches the ideas about the construction of consciousness.Show less
In the first part the base of my research will be the landscape and more specifically the nuclear radiated landscape as visualized in the artistic medium of film and video. The post human landscape...Show moreIn the first part the base of my research will be the landscape and more specifically the nuclear radiated landscape as visualized in the artistic medium of film and video. The post human landscape caused by nuclear radiation has alienated man from nature will be discussed by framing this landscape in the ecological rethinking of T.J Demos and Timothy Morton. Their focus is on the eco-critical debates by Felix Guattari, Bruno Latour and Michel Serres who started these debates in the 90s. I will content that these debates are able to contribute to a changing perspective, a better understanding of our relation with the Earth and the value of sustainability. Art is able to offer innovative ways to communicate important insights into human relationships with the radiated landscape. I will analyse the object-subject relationship between the observed landscape and the observer. How consciousness is attained by the construction and deconstruction of subjectivity in cultural practices that enables awareness and provokes action. In the first part I will analyse two critical art practices, realized by Diana Thater and the Otolith Group, that research the consequences of the radiated landscape of Chernobyl and Fukushima. As such, I will contend that the medium of film as used in the analysed artworks has the ability to construct and deconstruct subjectivity, overcoming the gap between object and subject, whilst creating consciousness and awareness that makes an appeal to activism. In the second part of this thesis, the artistic statement of my film installation will be expressed elucidating the decontaminating activities of the landscape in Fukushima three years after the nuclear disaster struck this area in Japan. As a visual artist I realized the film installation aware/哀れ consisting of a short experimental film with a composed soundscape that illustrates the subjective experience of the landscape and an interview film in which the relation of the Japanese cleaners with the contaminated landscape is expressed. The installation researches and questions the complex mutual engagement between the man-made landscape and a sustainable future. Next to the film installation two photographs are exhibited, cyanotypes portraying a landscape that is inflicted by the nuclear now. My theoretical research as described in the first part of this thesis is at the base of this installation. The film installation was shown in an exhibition in the Japan museum SieboldHuis in Leiden, The Netherlands from 10 till 22 February 2015 as part of this thesis.Show less
Master thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (MSc)
open access
Asking grand questions has long been found problematic in anthropology. The focus is usually put on the smaller issues. This thesis will research how we can unpack these trends. I investigate a...Show moreAsking grand questions has long been found problematic in anthropology. The focus is usually put on the smaller issues. This thesis will research how we can unpack these trends. I investigate a macro‐approach by using literature on shamanism and cosmovision. Grand questions are a compelling topic. Various disciplines, from history to archaeology and anthropology, have developed great talents in focusing on grassroots problems and micro‐issues. Small‐scale and area‐fixed studies are the norm. Not only is the focus put on the smaller issues, it is also considered too risky to present grand statements and promises, for it almost seems to beg for criticism. My criticism is that although these processes are essential, in that they provide the data for larger research questions, these studies often do not themselves get back to the broader perspectives. The hybridity, as well as the larger implications, thus easily remain obscured. In this thesis I take on the challenge to combine and reconnect the richness of different types of data with the theory‐based literature. Through a critical assessment of the literature, I will research how we can look at small‐scale issues from a broader perspective. Simultaneously, I will analyse how research with a focus on large‐scale issues can be analysed. This brings me to the connections that exist among the various approaches and perspectives used in anthropological and interdisciplinary research. It is precisely the combining of divergent approaches that challenges us, anthropologist, in our research and that is the topic of my research. The idea of interconnectedness will be put on the agenda by discussing how the topic can or cannot be studied. This means that I will look at approaches used in the literature and make an attempt in reconnecting the concepts that have been disconnected by researchers in the past. In conclusion, the main question of this thesis will focus on how we can research large topics by bringing research outcomes of projects that focus on small‐case issues together. One could say that in these small‐scale projects there is a trend to work within a fixed set of boundaries. This raises the question whether we, as anthropologists, are able to cross the boundaries of such delimited thinking.Show less
